Not pinning our hopes on Spa - Mallya
After a four week break the FIA Formula One World Championship returns to action with the drivers' favourite Belgian Grand Prix. Held at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the heart of the Ardennes forest to the south east of the country, the race is famed for its awesome combination of corners, unpredictable racing, weather and wheel to wheel action that has yielded some classic races.
The 2009 edition of the race was the perfect illustration of all these factors and holds a special place in the memories, and record books, for Force India. Going into the event that year, the team had made solid progress but had only qualified in the top ten once and had not yet finished in the points. However it went away from Spa with its first-ever F1 world championship points, pole position and podium finish when Giancarlo Fisichella put together an outstanding lap to put the VJM02 on the front row and then finish less than a second from the top step of the rostrum in the race.
The team now goes to this 2010 event with optimism, fresh from its summer break with new developments and a great chance of further increasing its points total for this season.
Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal: "Everyone in the team is looking forward to this second part of the season. We had a couple of weeks off over the shutdown period and we've all come back refreshed, strong and optimistic. We are currently sixth in the championship and we've got to make sure that we hang on to it by optimising everything we can. And Spa is a great track to start on a roll.
"We have a good car in low downforce trim, which counts at a track like Spa and Monza. We also have a new rear wing package to use this race in conjunction with the F-duct, which is working very well. Additionally we will be using the new blown floor on both cars on Friday. We tried it in Hungary, and we hope to actually race it in Spa if the information we gather shows as much of an improvement as it did there.
"All the same, we're not pinning all our hopes on Spa and Monza. It's going to be tough to replicate the kind of form we showed in Spa last year: everybody's improved, the competition is fierce and also very even in the midfield - the gaps between teams is so small now. We have also shown that we have been regularly able to score points on virtually all the tracks, not just the low downforce ones - apart from the last two races, which were unlucky in various regards, we've been in the points at a variety of track configurations.
"We also still have some updates coming for the rest of the season so it's going to be pushing all the way, right through to Abu Dhabi. We've got the opportunity to achieve our best finish in the championship in many years and it's not something I'm going to let go lightly."
